On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq rose by 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the realm of political betting, the crypto-based platform Polymarket has backed Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts her ascension as the 47th president of the United States.
In corporate news, shares of Nvidia climbed by 4% after reports from Reuters indicated that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” with plans to begin shipping it in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the report.
Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% ahead of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the company’s delayed robotaxi launch. Musk stated on social media that Tesla aims to have useful humanoid robots in limited production for internal use by next year, with hopes for wider production for other firms by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant tech outage last Friday, is still recovering, although services are slowly being restored. The company reported that a large portion of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are back online. Despite this progress, CrowdStrike’s stock dropped over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% decline following the release of its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The telecommunications company noted that customers are keeping their old phones longer, affecting upgrade rates and promotional offerings. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below analysts’ expectations of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share aligned with projections at $1.15.